Ah! rammenta, o bella Irene
by Colorblind City
Summary: The oft-told story of how Holmes found, fell in love with and was betrayed by, lost and regained Irene Adler.
1. Dinner

I had this new really long story all planned out, but I'm not sure anymore I can write the whole thing (honestly, my life is a mess and I'm depressed and I suck), so here, I give it to you in the form of drabbles, some will be long-ish, some will be super short, some will be set before the movies, some during, and some in the future that I had conceived for the story. Some will be unabashed fluff, some will be angsty, though I like to think the fluff will outweigh them.

As of right now, I have about 20 little ficlets that I will be posting during the next weeks (some still need tying up so bear with me) and after that... well, who knows, maybe someday I will write you the whole story, it depends on whether my muse comes back or not.

The title comes from Donizetti's aria of the same name, which you should have no trouble finding in youtube (tell me again why ff hasn't enabled links?), preferably choose the one sung by Cecilia Bartoli (who is a goddess and you should worship her), but hey, whatever floats your boat.

Yeah, so... that's it. I hope you enjoy them.

* * *

**~Dinner~**

_Ah! remember, lovely Irene,  
That you have sworn to be faithful to me.  
What comfort, oh! God, is left for me,  
What hope shall I have?  
For whom do I have to stay alive,  
If that heart is no longer mine?_

.

He follows her, not a rare occurrence.

He grabs her arm as he catches up, pulls her aside to hide her from prying eyes, then comes face to face with prying eyes that are hers, and he's not as annoyed as he was five minutes ago. Is it really too much to ask? To have a moment to themselves? A moment like those of the old days?

She starts walking again. He follows her because it doesn't seem as though she would follow him, and _somebody_ has to follow. Following in itself isn't a new development, it's something he has always done, it's just that recently he has realized the importance of doing it.

So now, he follows her when he is able and for as long as he is able, which is miles more than he used to dare to. And in return she stays as close as she is able, for as long as she is able, which is a considerably longer time than she used to care to.

Maybe they are coming to an agreement.

She still asks him to come away with her, though, from time to time (because she has to, because she can't _not_ do it and then spend entire nights up wondering if he might have accepted this time). He still asks her to stay, too, every time she does, because he knows at some point one of them has to give in, and although he has the sneaking suspicion that it won't be her, he can't go down without a fight.

So this time, after he followed her and she didn't put up half the struggle she usually puts into not being caught, after she kissed him and they made dinner plans like it was something they had been doing for years, he is certain that something has shifted, and whatever that was it cannot go back to the way it used to be. Tonight the dust will settle. Tonight one of them will make the choice.

He's got half a mind to pack up his most indispensable possessions, the ones that are always in the spot he methodically picked for them, and place them by the front door, just in case it's him. He's got the other half of his mind set on packing up his _least_ indispensable possessions, the ones that are just taking up much needed space in the flat, and putting them away in the storage attic, just in case it's her.

He then considers doing both, just to not put all of his eggs in one basket.

He briefly wishes he could make a bet, take the risk, choose the outcome he wants and hope he has luck on his side. Except he believes in no such thing as luck and making a bet on such an ambiguous outcome would be utterly foolish and Watson certainly would never let him live it down.

Eventually, he decides to do neither and settles for plucking the strings of his violin as he contemplates his conspiracy web, all red ribbons and well-composed though hard to prove theories. He throws his mind into it, because if he asks himself what he thinks the outcome of tonight's events will be _one more time_, he will drive himself insane and then convince himself not to show up at all.

Eight o'clock rolls around and finds him at The Savoy, sitting alone in a white loveseat strategically placed in one of the further corners of the establishment, shooing away waiters because he's not ready to order yet. He returns home a little past midnight, filled up on bread and a little inebriated from the expensive wine bottle he had to finish all on his own.

He wonders why he's always left to dine alone.


	2. Sacrifice

Originally, I wanted to keep this as unstructured as possible to have more freedom over the (very loosely planned) plot, but I don't want you to be confused because there will be a criminal amount of time jumps, so here's the thing:

one chapter is going to be holmes's pov, set on the 'present' (aka the events of a game of shadows and after) then the next will be a) Irene's pov or b) a flashback to an earlier time.

Irene's pov will be in the first person, and flashbacks will be written in the past tense. Hopefully that's not even more confusing.

Anyway, on with the show.

* * *

**~Sacrifice~**

_You made a deal, and now it seems you have to offer up  
But will it ever be enough?  
It's not enough_

_Here I am, a rabbit hearted girl_  
_Frozen in the headlights_  
_It seems I've made the final sacrifice_

-Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up), Florence and The Machine

.

He kisses me, and it's poison. I feel it flowing through my veins, slowly, destroying me.

And I can't stop.

It's been so long, and I thought by now I'd be immune, but- But he looks at me, eyes wide open and strangely warm, and I think...

I can't think.

We tumble (together, though sometimes it feels I'm the only fool in this pact) down this path once every year, then every month, then every week, and each time makes the days apart harder to bear. I'm not sure I remember what I did with my days before- before he held me, before he buried his hands in my hair, before he occupied every last thought...

He says (has said once, but I see it in his eyes ever since) that I'll be the death of him. He doesn't seem to believe me when I assure him it's quite the opposite.

He never comes to my shows, says he dislikes to see me pretending anymore than I already do when I'm with him (and if only he knew, if only he believed me when I tell him...)

And I sing with a heart half dead.

Until then he finds me, and makes me sing for him, and I hope I hope I hope-

And I think (once he has succumbed to sleep and his eyes aren't burning my brain to ashes) that he must believe me, in the end, if he can still fall so deeply into the void with me...

And it's only when he stays, and sleeps and wakes and breathes with me, that I can believe him too.

But then he stops staying, and he stops asking me to sing, and then he stops coming unless I ask, and then...

And then.

So I leave, because I've always known, I never should've let things come this far.

And the years pass me, and I think he has forgotten me, and sometimes (never, but some lies are necessary) I feel myself forgetting him too.

So I get myself a husband. And then another, and then a few more.

And then I get a letter.

It's not signed, the words cold and empty, the message clear. _Meet me at The Grand __for lunch_. And I would have swam my way to England if necessary.

* * *

I sit and fidget. I wait. It's three minutes past noon, and that should have been my first clue, he has never been late in his life. And still I sit there and hope.

The man that sits in front of me, five minutes past noon as I get ready to leave, is not the one I came to see, and and and

And I feel the air has been banished from my lungs, because I was hoping and he didn't-

I stand up to leave (to run far far away until I find where my dignity has escaped to) and then he speaks.

"I'm aware you would much rather be in the company of your... friend, Miss Adler, but please don't look so dissapointed, for it is precisely of him that I hope we can converse about."

His words are friendly but the amusement in his voice conceals a threat, so I sit back down, heart pounding so loud I can barely make out what he says next.

"My time, as well as yours, I believe, is precious, so I will go straight to the point. You see, Mr. Holmes has become a great inconvenience to me, but I would truly hate to see the loss of such a great mind, therefore, in the name of the_ sentiments_," and the way he sneers as if the word causes him physical pain makes me feel like a scolded child, "which you harbor for each other, I must ask for your help in... keeping him out of trouble, so to speak."

And I wish I could keep this, the humiliation and the loneliness, to myself, but I've never been one to waste what tools I have at hand. "I'm really sorry to disappoint you, sir, but I have no evidence of the survival of such _sentiments_ you speak of," and then, quieter: "I've not heard from him in years."

His eyes gleam, and I see my mistake instantly.

"It does not matter, my dear, even if he does not succumb to his feelings for you, how could you not succumb to yours for him?"

Everyone has a weak spot, and he found mine.


	3. Bitter

Hello everyone, hope you all had a merry little christmas night. Also, this is the first time I use actual curse words in my work, and after stepping over that line, the cursing can only get worse. You've been warned.

* * *

**~Bitter~**

_Then I think of all the tricks, all the minutes all the hours and days and weeks and months and years waiting for me. All of it without them. And I can't breathe then, like someone's stepping on my heart, Laila. So weak I just want to collapse somewhere._ -Khaled Hosseini

.

"Marriage is the end, I tell you!"

He splutters on and on, forgetting half the things he says the moment right after he's said them. No one ever said bitterness was a rational emotion...

They banter, like Holmes poisoned his (their) dog again, and his chest throbs as it caves in on itself while a million shrads of glass cut into the sensitive debris.

He tells himself, for the millionth time, this is not the last time they will do _this_, this childish routine of saying_ I love you and I can't breathe without you but you're a selfish bastard_ with insults and teasing and mocking and (and his brain has come to define this as _existing_, and can't even consider tearing that concept down and building a new one from scratch.)

"Not dying alone."

Holmes feels his heart being squeezed into a tiny little rock, and we all know just how large quantities of mass compressed into minuscule volumes ends.

He waits for the explosion in silence, and when it doesn't come he just says another something he forgets the moment it is out.

They drive in silence the rest of the way, and he can feel the apology radiating off Watson, but it offers no comfort, in the end, because the words are true: Holmes is going to die alone.

And it confirms the truth he (and Watson himself) has been trying to put down, a fire to be quelched before it spreads out and burns out the entire forest. The moment Watson gives his life over to Mary, Holmes will be given his back, and he doesn't (could never possibly, god, the mere thought is madness) want to live it out on his own.

And then, softly, an airy whisper travels across the ruins of his chest and gets caught in the gravity of his little frozen star of a heart.

Is marriage truly the way of not dying alone?

And he would like to say his mind comes up blank at the thought of marriage (other than the choking taste of bitterness in his mouth) but it doesn't.

He turns the word over, like a little china doll he isn't sure he wants to shatter anymore, and lets thoughts of bright eyes and pale skin (and kissed red lips and brown hair spilled like a halo and a body under his in a hotel room) float around, drifting down to the wreckage in his chest and orbiting around his neutron star heart, containing it from going supernova just yet.

He breathes in deep through his nose, and pulls the little car to a stop outside the club (he does not want to go in there, but heaven help him, this_ is_ a stag party). He sees Watson pat the hood that covers the engine of the thing, amazed like a child with a new toy, and Holmes turns away because his compressed heart is _pulsing_, and allowing it to explode right here and now is not a good idea.

* * *

Later, as he adjusts Watsons clothes (which are hopeless, they both know, but Holmes at least_ trying_ seems to give his friend reassurance, and Holmes would give him the _world_ in these last precious moments), as he shakes Watson awake so he can pledge eternal devotion to a vision in white (and Holmes is _not_ imagining another woman and himself in their place), as he watches them walk off under a rain of rice (taking his only friend forever away from his side so he can_ die alone_)...

He wonders why this goddamn useless piece of shit he used to call a heart won't just fucking explode already.

He closes his eyes, breathes in through his nose. Inside his pocket, his fingertips rub against each other as he wonders when he gave that lovely handkerchief back to it's (even lovelier) owner.

He wonders if she would have given it back, had he asked that night, on their last dinner together- but, oh, that's right. She didn't come.

So he_ is_ going to die alone, isn't he? Even his last resort, the life with her that he (detests admitting) he wants just as badly as he wants his old one back, has deserted him.

And the star pulses steadily, feeding off his self-serving pity like a leech, the supernova threatening to destroy him in a blinding flash of light and he knows, he never should have let things come this far.

A man waits for him back at his clever little car, "The professor wants to see you," and like that the star freezes. He has work to do, and for all its omnipotence, the bomb seems to understand this, and decides to stop ticking. A truce, Holmes would say, if he were thinking of it as sentient being (which he absolutely is not.)

He hops onto the driver's seat and turns the engine on, it spurs to life quite faithfully and Holmes would pat the hood proudly if he wasn't in complete work mode.

It's not the end, he thinks, and in the end it wasn't too bad either. At least this whole wedding circus is over, and he knows where he stands now, aside and alone. If he can only keep the supernova frozen for, say, the rest of his life, he should be able to get by just fine.

(The supernova does explode, later that day, the moment the soft fabric of her blood-stained handkerchief brushes his fingertips again.)


End file.
